Unfair Beginnings
by tetris11
Summary: The Guardians come face to face with their worst enemy/friend. The only person who is willing to end it all quickly by killing his opponents, instead of just...wounding their egos.
1. Happenstance

**Chapter 1 - Happenstance**

_Earth - Evening:_

The bell rang and the girls started to make their way home. It was a pleasantly dull evening in Heatherfield, few of which the girls had been getting recently due to the exam season reaching its full fruition, and largely due to the frequent Phobos encounters taking their toll.

"Phew! I feel like Im roasting here," said Will, wiping her forehead and blinking at the bright day.

"I... know..." said Taranee, struggling to keep up pace with the others, "cant...breathe..."

"Yeah - not much for hiking are you?" said Irma.

"Uh, it's like a hundred degrees out here," said Cornelia, brushing her hair off her face.

"I can feel -" she shudders, "- sweat patches under my arms."

"Yeah, I hear wearing a cotton top in the middle of a heat wave does that to you" said Irma.

"Such is the price of looking gorgeous," said Cornelia, lingering too much on the final word.

"Well Im just glad we have some time to ourselves," said Hay-Lin, smiling at the good weather, "Maybe we can focus non Guardian stuff for a little while."

"Yeah, it does make a change," said Will, "I feel like I haven't seen Matt for weeks now."

"Uh..hello?" said Irma, "you just saw him at school. You talked to him."

"Yeah but that was about Guardian related stuff. We didn't talk about him or me, just Phobos."

"God, he's taking over our social lives too?!" said Cornelia, clenching her fists.

"Come on, let's talk about something else," said Taranee.

They walked on, under the hot sun to Hay-Lin's place, talking about boys and shoes all the way.

* * *

_Miridian - Evening:_

Another cry echoed through the darkened caverns of the underwater mines. Such were the days and nights of a place designed to crush the human soul; the sounds of whiplash and screaming could be heard from all fourteen ends of the mines, echoing through the caverns so many times that a low consistent wail seemed to penetrate the mine from every direction.

At the far end of one of the caverns, a man in his haste had dropped his staff. He bent over to pick it up, but the guard got there first and beat him in the head with it; again and again until the only discernible feature of the man's face was a red stain covered in splinters. The man's hands stopped twitching and fell silent.

All this was witnessed by the scrawny boy who had been standing next to the man before the incident. His hands were paralysed with shock, and he stood rooted as he watched the guard recomposed himself. The guard was breathing heavily, and then noticed the boy. He was like a reed, and his hair was cut short - probably to stop the guards from dragging him around by it.

The boy's body language said that he was scared solid, but his narrow grey eyes stated otherwise; they were too calm, unglazed, unaffected, had probably witnessed the same scene too many times to be horrified by it anymore. Those born inside the mines were usually desensitized from it.

"GET BACK to WORK!" roared the gaurd, brandishing the bloody staff "and if I EVER catch you looking for a reason to rest EVER AGAIN, I'll do the same to you!"

The boy, realising he had been ousted, turned back to the mine and sulkily started to dig the wall.

"Damn," he said.


	2. Close Encounters

**Chapter 2 - Close Encounters**

_Earth - Night_

The news that Caleb's father was alive had begun an operation to break him out of the underwater mines and free him. In the process, their desperate plan was discovered and the mines were flooded to stop them escaping. They managed to get out, and even saved a few guards along the way, thinking that they had destroyed the mines in the process.

What they didn't know was that they had only destroyed one small part of the fourteen-cornered mines.

What they didn't know was that some of the lockdown gates failed, and that two of corners of the mines were flooded too, where there was no one to save the people inside.

What they didn't know was that those still working the mines, toiled for longer hours to make up for the lost workers. They all cursed the names of the Gaurdians.

The girls were in the attic, having a sleepover at Hay-Lin's house, when Caleb came through and shut the door behind him. All eyes were on his anxious face.

"I've got some... bad news."

"You forgot how to flush the toilet again?" quipped Irma.

Everyone threw her a scornful look.

"Whaat," she said defensively, "I was just trying to break the mood."

"Go on Caleb," said Will, clutching her heart.

He drew a shaky breath and began to pace.

"You know that day we saved my father?"

"And we destroyed the underwater mines, yeah..." said Cornelia.

"Destroyed the mines...." said Caleb, scratching the back of his head, "...right..."

"Well spit it out!"

"Well, that's the problem."

"What is?" asked Will.

"We didn't destroy the mine," began Caleb, fidgeting "so much as flooded a small part of it...."

"Ohmygod," said Irma, with her hands to her lips.

"Was anyone left behind?" asked Hay-Lin, her lips trembling.

"No!" said Caleb, a little too quickly, "Well, I mean, yeah. A few."

"How much is a few?" asked Taranee, her glasses betraying her anger.

"A few....hundred."

"A few HUNDRED?!" yelled Cornelia, "WHY didn't you tell us sooner!?"

She made a fist, but he caught it before she hit him with it.

"Hey - I just found out!"

"But your dad was working there! Why didn't he tell us?"

"He didn't want us to feel guilty for rescuing him," said Taranee pushing he glasses back up.

"Well we've got to do something!" cried Hay-Lin.

"We need to open a portal from the mines to Earth to get everyone out," said Will, fetching out the Heart.

"We need to go like NOW!" shouted Cornelia.

"Gaurdians, Unite!"

The girls went into their over-the-top power up sequence, whilst Caleb waited patiently for them by tapping his foot and sighing. "Let's go," said Will, and they all stepped into the portal which vanished behind them.

* * *

_Miridian - Night_

The workers were digging at a slightly faster rate than usual, as though something bad were about to happen, and that they were trying to cover for any future losses by working hard now. The guards noticed too, and were somewhat more edgy than usual; two men in two different sectors were beaten to death for working too hard, and extra reinforcements were stationed along the exits of the mines, checking each cart that came and went as though one of the Guardians were hiding inside.

It was ridiculous, and they all knew it, but word had gotten out around the mine that the Guardians were on their way to rescue everyone from the mines. This was met with a mixture of hope and weariness. Hope from the older generation of miners who still remembered what daylight looked like, and weariness from the younger generation who had grown up in the mines, not caring about what lay above, only knowing that rebel rescue attempts caused nothing more than disruption in work quotas for those left behind. Which was usually them.

They said nothing of course. The older generation were usually pitied, and it wasn't up to them to tip off the guards since they gained nothing from betraying their own. Whether anybody was freed or not simply meant that they either toiled in the mines underground, or toiled on the barren land above. Above, they would free and poor, but below, they were slaves and they were fed (usually).

There were, however, still a few of the younger generation who wanted to break out but for a slightly different reason. The tales of Caleb and the Guardians from Earth had spread across the kingdom like wildfire, usually as a promise to what the Guardians could achieve on Meridian. But to others, it was a promise of asylum. If the stories were true they wanted to go to Earth and live there. It was usually the main topic of whispered conversation in the mines.

"..I heard that they have towns that glow in the night..."  
"...-so that their people can see where the food is even under a dark sky-.."  
"...but their food is given to them for free which they trade for scraps of paper..."  
"...-paper as strong as spidersaw silk..."  
"...which they can get as much of as they want for their clothes..."  
"..they say the Guardians clothes shine like polished metal but is as soft as fire..."  
"...I heard someone saw them burn their clothes. They must do it every day...."

All gossip. But there was a common truth in some of the rumours which Tram and his small gang had managed to decipher. Most of the truths were startling, others less so:

_1. Food is readily available and in large quantity, at least in the part of the kingdom that the Gaurdians live in.  
2. The towns are lit up during night time, either for harvest (unlikely) or for recreational use.  
3. The same source of power that lights up their cities, heats their homes which are mostly without fireplaces.  
4. The people dress luxuriously, probably owning several sets of clothes.  
5. They can communicate over long distances using small powered devices.  
6. Their towns are littered with metal shields which are often place above spare food and spare sets of clothing and other items (unsure).  
7. The word 'like' is used all the time, even in mid-sentence (CONFIRMED).  
8. There are plenty of recreational grounds with resting benches available for someone to sleep on.  
9. Everyone is nice (unsure).  
10. The weather is warmer._

Tram wasn't really sure whether to believe half of them, but it was enough to give his gang the courage to continue with their 'breakout plan'. It wasn't so much of a plan as it was a long sprint towards the nearest portal as the Guardians came to rescue people (which they inevitably would). The key was to get in and out of the portal quickly enough to sneak away into the Earth kingdom without the Guardians knowing. After that it was a simple process of finding one of the many metal shields in the city and blending in with Earth people.

It was a foolish plan, but it made Tram grin every time he thought about it. Come on Guardians, he thought, let me live in your world for a while and I'll let you visit mine. He looked around the dimly lit caverns and smelled the dust in the air. His hands were smooth from the dirt and the tick-tick-tick of picks against the rock had a certain harmony to it that Tram knew he would miss.

He laughed. No need to get sentimental now. Everything had to go just right for them to succeed. With a casual look to his right, he signalled Caliban, who started to dig at another part of the rock. Tram spat on his hands and gripped his pick more tightly, waiting for something to change in the air so that the could give his men the freedom that he had promised them since they were children.


End file.
